


Take a Chance On Me

by 94BottlesOfSnapple



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Adult Michelle Jones, Adult Peter Parker, Bisexual Foggy Nelson, Bisexual Matt Murdock, Bisexuality, Coming Out, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24920761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple
Summary: Matt decides it's finally, finally time to come out to Foggy - and also confess his feelings. His opportunity comes in the form of a masquerade ball hosted by Danny Rand. Peter and Wade help Matt prepare an outfit for the ball, and Matt reminisces on his journey to acknowledging and understanding his sexuality.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Peter Parker & Wade Wilson, Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 21
Kudos: 82
Collections: Team Red Pride Bang





	Take a Chance On Me

**Author's Note:**

> The artist who created for me on this big bang is [BelgianReader2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelgianReader2/pseuds/BelgianReader2)
> 
> I also had such a fun time coming up with a design for Matt's outfit that I've decided to include my concept sketch as Peter's in-universe one.

It all started with eleven words. Eleven words completely unrelated to Matt himself, or his sexuality, or— But then, cause and effect tended to work that way — the flap of a butterfly’s wings stirring a tornado halfway across the world and all that.

The words were:

“If you had this money, what would you do with it?”

They were spoken by Danny Rand — current CEO of Rand Corp, Immortal Iron Fist of K’un L’un, and twenty-five-year-old clueless rich boy pain in Matt Murdock’s ass — to Foggy Nelson, Matt’s law partner and best friend. And so began a journey that would see the partner who _wasn’t_ pulling double-duty as a vigilante becoming the one who never showed up to the office.

With Foggy’s eager help and Hogarth’s reluctant assistance, good things were happening with Danny’s genuinely ludicrous inheritance — he was raising Rand Corp employee wages, lowering drug costs, paying reparations for damages to the public that had been caused by the company, donating to charities, and even setting up a few. Foggy’s check-in calls tended to consist of seething indictments of the Rand Corp board’s character and smug updates on how he, Danny, and Hogarth had most recently outmaneuvered them.

But, used to spending nearly every day with Foggy for years and years, Matt found these phone calls were kind of a poor replacement. It was for a good cause, many good causes, including keeping their firm in the black, Matt reminded himself over and over. But it still rankled. Just a little. He was mature enough to keep his petty bad mood to himself, though.

* * *

“What did that poor napkin ever do to you?”

Matt jumped, and the napkin he’d been twisting in his hands ripped loudly in two.

“K-Karen. What, uh.” Matt, unsure what to do with the papery carnage in his hands, turned towards his trash can and then back towards the direction of Karen’s voice. “Did you need something?”

“You just seem...” She trailed off in a way that made Matt think she was delicately sidestepping a less-tactful word. “Stressed.”

“I’m f—”

“Do _not_ say fine.”

He was half-tempted to say it just to spite her, but in the end Matt decided to exercise his discretion and busied himself with throwing the napkin away while he thought up a different response. One less likely to get him whapped in the head by a manila folder. He straightened up with a sigh.

“I. I’m ok. Really.”

Admitting he was irritated that Danny had made lunch plans with Foggy before he had a chance to was unthinkable. Matt still had, if nothing else, his dignity. And he didn’t exactly want it to get back to Foggy, who Karen tended to text frequently throughout the day. If it did, Foggy would either worry and mother hen Matt or tease him about his jealousy in a way that was gentle but hit way too close to home. Neither sounded fun.

Karen sighed. Matt was pretty sure she probably rolled her eyes too.

“You don’t have to keep everything so bottled up all the time, Matt. It’s not like you’re a very good liar. You don’t smile as much when Foggy’s gone,” she pointed out. “I know you miss him. I do too.”

Her hand was light on his shoulder, but there was strength in her grip as she gave it a quick squeeze. So encouraged, Matt stood and they eased into a hug.

“I just want him to come home,” Matt admitted to the waterfall of Karen’s hair, and felt the words resonate through their touching cheeks.

Karen gave him one last squeeze before letting go. The scent of her shampoo — floral, light — still lingered in the air even as she moved back to her own desk.

“Maybe you should tell him that,” she offered.

* * *

Matt thought about Karen’s advice. Thought about telling Foggy he missed him. Thought about telling Foggy... Other things.

Because Matt was an adult now, not an awkward college student. And things had finally settled down, were finally back on course...

More than that, Foggy had come back for him. After everything Matt put him through. It was something Matt couldn’t say about anyone else in his life, not really. He’d lived a long string of abandonments — by choice or by tragedy. Foggy had surmounted both to stand at Matt’s side again. Despite the danger and the drama and the lies.

And Matt wanted...

Matt _wanted_.

It was time to stop holding back. Time to stop letting caution rule him.

Which was, well, easier said than done. It wasn’t like he could exactly go up to Foggy and say ‘by the way there _is_ something else I didn’t tell you for practically a decade — I’m into men and also in love with you’. That was just asking for another firm-wide stint of awkward avoidance. No one wanted that. Least of all Matt, who had realized — sometime between snatching Daredevil’s club out of the air only a few inches from Foggy’s face and drinking contentedly with Foggy and Karen while the entire Nelson brood bustled around them — that he didn’t want to be without Foggy ever again.

Not to mention that even if he’d had the stones to just come right out and say it like that, Rand was monopolizing Foggy’s time anyway. There was hardly room to get a word in edgewise anymore. The few evenings that both Foggy was free and Matt had decided not to patrol, his throat locked up as soon as the idea of confessing crossed his mind. Not even the alcohol could loosen it.

In short, the endeavor was a disaster. Matt needed help. Karen was out, mostly because it would be unbearably awkward to ask his ex to help him woo someone, even though he was pretty sure she didn’t have romantic feelings for him anymore.

He could’ve asked Jess. Out of all his erstwhile teammates — the so-called Defenders — she was the one who understood him best. There were too many similarities between them for her not to. Of course, she was also more likely than not to mock him mercilessly too. The real problem was that she was equally as bad as Matt was — if not worse — at talking about feelings.

In the end, it came down to Peter and Wade. Not that they were paragons of human functionality or anything, but they were at least willing to talk without half a bottle of whiskey in them and gutsy enough to push Matt to action.

Peter, known more professionally — or as professional as one could get while fighting crime in an apparently eye-searingly red and blue onesie — as Spider-Man, had run into Matt not a week out from Fisk’s final arrest. Matt had been patrolling fairly aimlessly, Peter had been chasing a mugger across Manhattan. Since then, their paths had crossed briefly a few more times, but nothing major — until Matt got shot trying to dismantle a den of arms dealers. He’d been disoriented by the pain, and the scent of his own blood had brought back less than pleasant memories of his time healing in the basement of Clinton Church. Things had gone, well, fuzzy after that. The way Peter told it, Matt had kept fighting until he collapsed and even then tried to keep swinging when Peter hauled him up to get him some medical care. Peter had somehow managed to get Matt to Claire’s, Claire had called Foggy, and… Well, after someone met Foggy, they tended to get folded into Matt’s circle of friends, whether he liked it or not.

Wade was, uh. A little more complicated. His and Matt’s first meeting had been fraught, to say the least. The less said about it the better, honestly. But he was practical and charming and had a hidden kind streak; for someone who was hired to assassinate both Matt and Peter at different points during the course of their acquaintanceship, Wade wasn’t such a bad guy. Matt still had... Qualms. Lots of qualms. But if he could have a positive feeling or two about Frank Castle, then Wade wasn’t too much of a stretch. And he was infinitely less of an asshole.

Well. Maybe not less. But a less infuriating type.

Yes. Wade and Peter were the best choice for the job. But even once he’d decided to do it, Matt spent half an hour procrastinating on calling them. Which was ridiculous, because once he’d finally done it, the calls took less than a minute each. Wade leapt at the chance to ‘have a boy’s night in’ and hung up in the middle of Matt trying to calm him down. Peter was more reasonable about things, but it wasn’t like working with reporters all day made him _less_ nosy. He was clearly curious. And, for once in his life, not busy.

Which was good because Matt really wanted to rip off this emotional band-aid as soon as possible. He settled in and tried to meditate as he waited. It was a struggle, but he managed it for ten minutes, fifteen, twenty… And then he picked up on something.

Wade ran hot. Way hotter than most humans who weren’t burning up in a hospital bed. Matt could always feel him coming, an inferno with a rock-steady heartbeat. Peter was the opposite. He ran a little cool, though not so much that Matt focused on it, and his heartbeat was constantly zipping and darting, way too fast to be healthy for anyone else. A hummingbird heartbeat. Their steps, too, were distinct — a casual shuffle that hid the remains of a military lope, and a light but still clumsy stride that was heavy in the toe.

The point was, even before the scent of them reached Matt’s nose, he could tell who was coming up the street towards his apartment building. Not bothering to wait, Matt took the stairs two at a time to meet them at the stoop. He submitted himself to the back-patting and the secret handshakes which were the standard as a member of ‘Team Red’, then led the others back up to his apartment.

“So,” Peter opened with, settling onto Matt’s couch with a plop. “What’s up, Red?”

Matt sighed.

“I want to, I want to come out to someone,” he explained. “But I don’t know how he’ll take it.”

“The trick is,” Wade said solemnly, settling his hands on Matt’s shoulders, “if you come out to someone and they take it badly. You kill ‘em.”

Peter groaned. His voice as he muttered to himself was muffled — by his hands, probably, but Matt could still make out the words.

“—put on this earth just to _suffer_.”

“Wade,” Matt said, “I’m not going to kill Foggy.”

“Nelson?” asked Wade, his voice perking up. “... Wait, Nelson still doesn’t _know_?”

Matt cringed.

“Matt,” Peter said, in a tone that meant he was about a minute from tearing his hair out. “You never told the guy that’s basically your common-law husband you’re into dudes? How. _How_ does he not know this about you? I know this about you. MJ knows this about you. The _baristas at my coffee shop_ know this about you.”

“It’s...” Matt sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “It’s complicated.”

* * *

That complication began more than a decade prior, with Matt and Foggy’s very first meeting.

The first thing Matt had noticed was the music. He didn’t recognize the song at the time, beyond a vague familiarity, but would later pin it down as Train’s “Drops of Jupiter”. After that came the scent, wafting through the open door — shampoo, light and fruity, underpinned by notes of wood shavings and… Ham? Matt had scrunched his nose, then very purposely smoothed his expression and knocked on the doorframe.

It had taken Foggy a few minutes, a few questions, to realize just who Matt was — his roommate — and then who he was again — Matt Murdock, aka the kid who got his peepers knocked out saving that old dude.

The phrasing was just… So hilariously tactless. And Matt _loved_ it. Because it was also genuine. Not scripted or censored or hesitant. Not dancing around Matt like he was fragile. Foggy was better than Matt could have ever imagined his roommate would be. Everything about him wiped away the fears that had been building in Matt’s gut about living with a stranger.

And then came the slip.

“Yeah. You’re just a guy, right?” Foggy had said. “A really, really good-looking guy.”

And his heart had started skipping, and the air had gone hot, and Foggy’s scent had— shifted, deepened. Not quite arousal, but definitely, definitely attraction. The suddenness and the novelty of it had startled Matt, and he floundered, unsure how someone was meant to respond to an observation like that from another guy.

“Oh,” he’d said inarticulately, furrowing his brows. “Um.”

Foggy’s racing heart stuttered.

“I mean uh. Girls must. Love that. The whole… Wounded handsome duck thing.”

Like the comment about Matt’s eyes, it was awkward. Tactless. And… And Matt _still_ loved it. Foggy was so earnest, straightforward, and his lying was abysmal. He was kind and complimentary, and he wanted to be Matt’s friend. Matt wanted to be Foggy’s friend too, he decided.

If Foggy was gay, well. That was fine. Matt didn’t know much about that, but he wasn’t going to be a jerk about it either. He could be supportive.

However, after his initial awkward backpedal from calling Matt good-looking, it had taken Foggy most of a year to finally, really come out to him. And even then, he’d done it drunk, voice wavering, in tears at the thought of being rejected.

“Hey, Matty,” Foggy had greeted, already wobbly, when Matt got back from the library. “Can we, can we talk?”

The smell of alcohol in the air, when mixed with Foggy’s upset tone, was already ringing alarm bells in Matt’s head. Foggy wasn’t exactly one to turn down a drink or two, but he’d always been a happy, giggly drunk — his easygoing and tactile nature heightened by intoxication. This had been… Something else entirely.

“Yeah Fogs,” Matt had said cautiously, folding up his cane and dropping his bookbag by his bed. “Of course. What’s wrong?”

“Matt I’m. I’m just gonna say it. I. I like guys. I mean. Romantically. I’m.” Foggy groaned, and there was a rustle of his hand running through his hair. “Ugh, I’m messing this all up is what I am.”

Very deliberately, Matt decided to sit down on Foggy’s bed, right next to him. Patted Foggy’s knee, fumbled for his hand and squeezed it.

“Foggy, I don’t care about that,” Matt promised. “I mean, you should, you should be happy with whoever makes you happy, buddy.”

“Yeah,” agreed Foggy, quietly, sniffling. “Yeah, I mean, it’s. It’s not like I. It’s not like it should matter, right? But it just, it _does_ , to so many people. Even my folks. They love me but… They don’t get it, you know?”

 _I do know_ , Matt had wanted to say. _I understand_ . Because he’d met the Nelsons over Spring Break, and they’d been affable and down to earth and so welcoming — but. He’d also overheard Anna, Foggy’s mother, leadingly telling him about how lovely and accomplished Mrs. Li’s daughter was, and also how very single. And he’d— Oh, he’d wanted to go down there and, and _say something_. Foggy liked guys. There was nothing wrong with that!

But Matt had been washing his hands in the upstairs bathroom at the time. He’d have had to explain how he even heard what she’d said. And the Nelsons had let him into their home as a guest, and…

And Matt had chickened out.

But he’d stuck close to Foggy for the rest of break, unsettled and defensive.

Matt was drawn back to the present when Foggy squeezed their intertwined hands.

“I’m sorry,” he’d said, squeezing back. “I’m sorry they aren’t, that they don’t understand.”

“Nah, man, don’t be. I… I’m just happy _you_ do.”

That night had very nearly broken Matt’s heart.

Foggy deserved the world. He deserved whatever would make him happy. An accepting family, a society that didn’t make him doubt himself, a boyfriend who treated him like he was precious. But Matt couldn’t give him any of that. All he could do was be the best friend he could for Foggy, and hope that was enough.

At the time, Matt still hadn’t... He still hadn’t known — or realized, or, or whatever the right word for it was — that he wasn’t straight. There were girls, and there were girls, and there was Elektra. It wasn’t like he could be _gay_ , so he just didn’t think about it.

* * *

“Wow,” Wade said when Matt was finished with his story. “That’s rough, buddy.”

“But what’s stopping you from telling him now?” wondered Peter, ever the practical problem-solver.

Matt sighed, ducking his head and putting his hands on his hips.

“Trust me, I’ve tried. But I can’t seem to, can’t ever seem to get the words out. I think I’ve been silent about it so long that it’s just… It’s easier not to say anything now. Even if I want to.”

Wade made a thoughtful noise.

“An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force,” he said, and was greeted with absolute silence. “What! I’m smart, I know science stuff too. You can’t shoot people if you don’t have at least a _basic_ understanding of physics.”

“Yeah, fair enough,” Matt said, and found his voice coming out warm with amusement.

“Well, I mean, I think Wade’s right,” agreed Peter. “Maybe you just need an outside force. A… A moment. An event. Something to shake you out of your everyday routine and keep you from sticking to your comfort zone.”

They spent the next hour spitballing ideas for what that event might be, but didn’t land on anything concrete before Peter had to meet his aunt for dinner and Wade had to go to work, his newest job unspecified for the sanity of all present. Matt promised to keep them posted if he ran across anything that might work.

* * *

A week later, Matt practically tripped as he hurried up the steps to the office, because he’d heard Foggy’s heartbeat inside from half a block out. Like a teenager on a first date, he caught his breath outside the door, patting his hair and anxiously straightening his tie. Which was absolutely silly. It was Foggy. It was just Foggy. He’d seen Matt in just about every state of undress, sloppy drunk, a heartbroken mess, and held together with bloody stitches.

Just… It felt special, after so long not able to spend much time with him. Matt wanted to look good. He wanted to remind Foggy that he could be reliable. A good partner. A good…

A good partner.

He took in a deep breath and blew it out through his mouth, then opened the office door.

“Matty!”

There was so much sunshine in Foggy’s tone that Matt felt warm all over. The hug he was tugged into immediately after was even better. He hugged back, probably too tight.

“Finally decided to show up for work, Mr. Nelson?” he asked.

“Yeah, figured I should take a break from my superhero work to help out the little people,” joked Foggy. “And… Well, actually, there was something else.”

They pulled back from the embrace, slapped each other’s back a couple of times to keep things platonic. Matt made his way to the kitchenette to pour himself a cup of coffee, and Foggy trailed along after him.

“What’s this mysterious something else?”

“Well… You know the stuff I’ve been working on with Danny?” Foggy asked, pausing to let Matt make an encouraging noise around his sip of coffee. “One of the organizations is about creating career opportunities for LGBT youth. It’s mostly headed by small business owners in the city, but they called me in to do a little mentoring too. They’ve been doing great with all the extra support from Danny, and he wanted to do something nice for everybody — the kids, and the supporters. Something fun, to celebrate. So he’s gonna put on a masquerade ball next month, on the nineteenth.”

Matt paused, his mug of coffee halfway to his lips again.

“A masquerade ball?”

“Yeah. I know it’s a little fantastical, but that’s... Kind of what we’re going for, I guess? Anyway, uh. Do you wanna come?” Foggy asked. “I’m allowed a plus one.”

“Well, I—”

“I know it’s not really your scene,” said Foggy hurriedly. “But Anika and Dominique are catering, and I… I’ve missed you, buddy.”

Matt’s heart melted in his chest. He could feel a dopey smile spread across his face but, well, it was Foggy, so he didn’t bother to try and hide it.

“Yeah, Fogs, I. I’ve missed you too.”

“So you’ll come?”

The hopeful uplift in his voice had Matt practically buoyant.

“It’s a date,” he agreed, relishing the delightful little spike in Foggy’s heart rate.

* * *

Matt marshaled the troops — or rather, Peter and Wade — again that very night after patrol to tell them about the ball. Both agreed it was a suitably theatrical and thematically appropriate event to come out to Foggy at, and that they’d help Matt start planning his outfit over the weekend.

For that endeavor, they met up in Peter’s shitty apartment — which smelled of balsa wood, metal, and too much lemon Pledge. This was because, as Peter put it, he did his best work in his own space. They crammed into Peter’s bedroom for the task, Peter at his busted-up drafting table, Wade leaning against the windows and blocking the breeze for everyone else, and Matt standing in the middle of the room, half to be ‘studied for inspiration’ and half because he wasn’t actually sure how many cuts he had and didn’t want to bleed on Peter’s stuff.

“Ugh. I’ve got nothing,” Peter muttered after several minutes of humming thoughtfully to himself.

Matt, tired of standing without support, had moved to lean against one of the walls.

“Come on, Bugaboo,” Wade pressed. “You’re a photographer. You‘ve got to have a sense of aesthetics buried in there _somewhere_.”

And that just sounded… Ominous. Matt fiddled with the sleeve of his suit jacket.

“I don’t need anything flashy,” he said. “I mean, I. If I just get the colors in there, it should be fine, right? No need to make a big, no need to make a big production.”

Wade made a negative game show buzzer noise.

“Absolutely not. This is _exactly_ the time to make a big production.”

“You’ve gotta make a statement with it,” Peter agreed, sounding resigned but determined. “Even with the color scheme, you can’t just go in a regular suit. You need something flashier. Something…” His voice turned thoughtful. “Peacock-y. Hmmm. Hold on.”

There was a rustle of paper, and then the click of a pen. The scent of ink spilled into the air.

“How did you figure it out anyway, Red?” asked Peter, over the rolling scribble of pen on paper. “If you were so sure you couldn’t be into dudes because you weren’t gay, I mean. You kind of left us hanging last time.”

That... Was also complicated. Matt groaned, letting his head thump back against the wall behind him.

“Well...”

* * *

It all began with Marci Stahl. Marci Stahl was in Matt’s Literature of the American Peoples class. She wore heels that clicked loudly on tile, smelled like a Bath & Body Works, and was one of the most brilliant, vicious debaters in class. She’d threatened to kick his ass once. It put Matt in this weird liminal space where he found her mind-bendingly attractive and also kind of horrible at the same time. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to sleep with her or fight her or both.

He didn’t get a chance to do either before the day he came back to his and Foggy’s dorm room to find her sauntering out of it, a cloud of sex smells billowing into the hall in her wake.

“Murdock,” she said when she walked by, sounding extremely pleased with herself, and Matt just about choked on his tongue.

Cautiously, he knocked on the doorframe of the room and waited for Foggy’s ok before stepping inside and closing the door behind him. The scent was worse there. Not unpleasant on its own, but thick in the air and made horrible by the attached meaning.

Even knowing it would send him into a coughing fit, Matt had a desperate, frenzied desire to febreeze the entire dorm room. He stifled it by clenching his jaw and picking too-violently at the hem of his sleeve.

“What um. Was. Was that Marci Stahl?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light and, and not accusatory.

“Mm?” Foggy yawned, stretched and let out a satisfied groan. “Yeah, that was Marci. She mentioned she’s got American Lit with you, but I didn’t realize you _knew each other_ knew each other.”

Matt shrugged, still tense, and sat down on his own bed. There was a long, long silence, then Foggy’s breath caught.

“Oh, shit. You like her,” he said, agonized. “Shit. You like her, and I just—”

“No!” corrected Matt. “No, I mean I. She’s, she’s ok, but I’m not…”

He wouldn’t be petty enough to get mad at Foggy over someone he was just looking to have a one night stand with. That would be stupid. Foggy was his friend, he was way more important than Matt’s sex drive.

But. But Foggy was gay. What was he doing sleeping with Marci anyway? He seemed content, not like he’d been pressured into anything, but. Marci was a girl.

“Oh,” Foggy said, puzzled. “Ok. It just seems like, uh… Something’s bugging you?”

Matt worked through about five different responses, then...

“I thought you liked guys,” he’d blurted instead of using any of them, like an idiot.

Silence filled the room for five of the longest seconds of Matt’s life.

“Oh!” Foggy said at last, startled. “I mean, I do? I like both. Any. All. Whatever, I just, I like people.”

Matt had wondered, but not said aloud, _that’s an option_? Which seemed ridiculous to have to point out but. There had been straight and there had been gay and Matt wasn’t gay. But apparently neither was Foggy.

“Is there a. Is there a word for that?” he’d asked.

“Oh!” Foggy had sounded startled. “Yeah. Um. Yeah. Bisexual. It’s the, uh, B in LGBT. Got its own flag and everything.”

“Bisexual,” repeated Matt, tasting the word on his tongue. “What, um. What does the flag look like?”

He knew the gay flag was rainbow stripes, but that was about the limit of his knowledge on the matter. Foggy, it turned out, had a small bi pride flag that he kept in a mug on his desk. Matt had heard it fluttering before, but had always assumed it was for a sports team or something — Foggy was really into both baseball and hockey, after all. Matt couldn’t tell because the pattern was dye-printed on the fabric, but Foggy let Matt touch the flag, guiding his fingers to where each stripe ended as he described them while they sat together on Foggy’s bed. Pink on top, purple in the middle, blue on the bottom.

“That sounds pretty,” Matt said, a little inanely, when he was done.

His fingers were tingling where Foggy had touched them and his brain was a bit overloaded with the shift in his worldview, though, so he gave himself a pass on it.

“Yeah,” agreed Foggy. “I like it a lot.”

“I, um. I didn’t know. I mean, when you said you liked guys I thought that meant…”

“I was gay,” Foggy finished, when Matt couldn’t. “Yeah, I guess I wasn’t very, uh, specific. In my defense, I was _incredibly_ drunk.”

There was a lilt in his voice that Matt liked to think coincided with a smile. It made him smile too.

“Trust me, Fogs, I know. I think I got a little tipsy just off your fumes.”

That earned him a playful shove and a laugh.

“Yeah, yeah. Only because you’re such a lightweight.”

Matt could have left it at that. Maybe _should_ have left it at that. But Foggy seemed open to questions and Matt really... He wanted to know. Needed to know.

“When you said your folks didn’t understand…”

Foggy sighed.

“People are always gonna try to tell you to choose a side,” he said, quiet and solemn. “You know, gay or straight. My parents try to push me one way, and sometimes people in the community — shitty people, not the good ones — try to push me the other. But this _is_ my side. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Matt thought about those words for a long, long time after. Days. Weeks. He’d been trapped in a false dichotomy. It wasn’t gay or straight. There were other options. Liking girls didn’t mean Matt couldn’t like guys too.

Which didn’t mean that he did.

Did it?

But even with everything squared away, knowing Foggy hadn’t lied to him and Marci hadn’t taken advantage of Foggy… Matt still felt something upset and squirming about the idea of Marci and Foggy together. Something that made his eyes itch and his breath hiccup and his chest go cold.

* * *

By the time Matt finished his story, Peter had discarded a number of designs — based on the various pauses in his sketching to loudly crumple the paper into a ball. The last sketch was still intact though, and Peter made a thoughtful noise over it as his pen drew to a stop.

“Wade?” he asked.

Wade gave a low whistle.

“Not bad.”

Interrupting one another with pertinent details, Peter and Wade gave Matt a rundown of the design. It was flashy, but not as over the top as Matt had feared. No headpieces, no capes or anything. Just a vest over a dress shirt, a pair of slacks, nice shoes, a mask, and… A skirt-type piece that Peter described as ‘a peacock tail’. Matt was having a little trouble imagining that in his mind, but he also knew that neither Wade or Peter would try to dress him in something horrible or embarrassing, not for something this important. The colors would fit the bi flag, just as Matt had intended, Peter explained, though he had only sketched out the basic design. Pink for the vest, with purple embroidery on the bottom half, and mostly blue for the skirt, which would hopefully have a fabric with a feather design. The slacks and shirt were supposed to be black. Matt had plenty of pairs of black slacks, and at least one black dress shirt, so they were fine on that front. The rest would have to be custom-made.

“Ok,” Matt said at last, nodding. “That sounds, that sounds good. So, where do we start? Do you know somewhere we can buy fabric for this?”

“You’re joking, right? On my shoestring budget? Or yours? Something like this takes coordination,” Peter insisted. “And money!”

“Money...” Wade said thoughtfully, and Matt’s stomach sank.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, he was being forcefully carted up the steps to Danny Rand’s obnoxiously huge apartment building. To Matt’s satisfaction, he hadn’t made the journey easy on anyone. But that had hardly stopped Wade. And so Matt had resorted to verbal argument as well as physical struggle.

“This is ridiculous,” he insisted. “I can’t just walk up and—”

“You can and you will, Matt,” said Peter in a tone that brooked no argument.

“I don’t even want Rand in the loop _anyway_ —”

“No choice now, Magoo,” replied Wade, finally hauling Matt bodily over his shoulder. “Ring that bell, Pete, I’ve got him.”

Peter rang the buzzer. It sounded like a death knell.

Danny welcomed Matt and Peter and Wade, who was thankfully in regular person clothes and not the rubber and kevlar nightmare he usually paraded around in, right up to his penthouse without hesitation. He also offered them hors d'oeuvres which were so expensive and had such high quality ingredients that Matt almost teared up trying one. However, most of the food on the platter, which smelled like it was solid silver, went into Peter’s stomach to feed his heightened metabolism.

When Matt explained the condensed version of his feelings and his plan to confess them — _entirely_ under duress — Danny was... Shocked. And then a little baffled. And then increasingly excited. Matt wanted to jump out a window.

“I just want you to know,” Danny said very earnestly, clasping Matt’s hands in his own, “that I’m honored you came to me with this. Anything you need, I promise, I’ll make sure you get it.”

Matt really, really needed to jump out a window. But he knew with great certainty that it would not be polite to voice this. Instead, he let Peter explain their desperate need for fabric. Danny knew a guy, because of course he did, and before Matt knew what was happening he and the rest of Team Red were being whisked off in a limo to places unknown. On the way, Peter called up Michelle and asked her to meet them at the address Danny had sent them to.

The building echoed. That was how big it was, it fucking echoed, even with plush carpets and millions of bolts of fabric lining the shelves.

“Oh my god,” Michelle breathed. “This is real silk. Real, actual, high-quality, very expensive silk. Does this man understand what kind of power he’s offered me?”

Peter chuckled.

“No, probably not. Better take him for all he has before his financial advisors catch wind of it, MJ.”

“Oh,” she said ominously. “I will.”

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Matt had practically fallen asleep in one of the cushy chairs. Wade was sitting next to the chair playing what sounded like Candy Crush on his phone. Occasionally, Michelle or Peter roused Matt to have him touch bolts of fabric and verify that they were acceptable textures. He listened dozily to them chatter between themselves about this color or that pattern. Finally, they seemed to come to a consensus.

“This,” Michelle told Danny’s fabric person. “But in these colors, you see? Are you able to get that printed?”

“Yes, that’s simple enough.”

“Perfect. And do you have a measuring tape I can borrow?”

Matt yawned in the middle of the reply to that, and missed it. But when Michelle came over to rouse him from his seat to get his measurements, he figured he knew which answer she’d gotten.

“You know, with the blank check Danny gave us, we could just hire a tailor,” he pointed out, stretching.

“And do you want a random tailor you don’t know measuring you or fitting things to you?” Michelle asked, flat and unimpressed.

No. Definitely not. But it felt like everyone was going to a lot of great personal trouble for something so... So frivolous. Explaining this just earned him a groan of frustration from Michelle’s direction.

“Magoo, do you ever think sometimes people just want to do things to see you happy?” Wade suggested. “Y’know, because they care about you?”

Oh.

Matt cleared his throat. He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, but didn’t remove his glasses or rub at his eyes, which were suddenly itchy.

“I, um. I…”

He wanted to say thank you, but couldn’t quite force the words out. Michelle saved him from his own bumbling by beginning her measurements, grumping at him about holding still.

“So are you, uh. Are you planning on doing the sewing yourself?” Matt asked, a couple minutes later when the lump in his throat had finally dissipated.

“Are you doubting me? I sewed my own vest for prom,” she said. “And Peter’s. Plus at least three for weddings in the last six years since then. I know what I’m doing.”

“Can confirm,” agreed Peter. “Her skill inspires terror.” A smack — Michelle bonking Peter on the head with her sheaf of measurement notes. “And admiration! Lots and lots of admiration!”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Michelle said sharply. “I’ll handle the sewing. We’ll probably need Rand’s people to help with the embroidery on the vest, because there’s no way I’d get it done in time hand-sewing and I don’t know how to work these fucking embroidery machine monstrosities. But otherwise, I’m good to go as soon as we get the fabric in.”

Wade chimed in offering to make the mask, and then… Well, that was that. Everything was settled until the supplies came in. It felt like taking the first step in a very long road.

* * *

Foggy was in the office more and more after the announcement of the masquerade. Danny had told him not to worry about the planning, apparently, and that he should be spending time on his own business. Knowing Danny, it was probably very thinly-veiled matchmaking, but Matt honestly couldn’t have cared less. More Foggy was more Foggy, no matter the reason, and the firm’s caseload was much easier with two lawyers again.

“Are you planning to wear anything special for the masquerade, Foggy?” Matt asked over lunch one day, when his curiosity boiled over.

“Well, a mask,” joked Foggy. “But yeah, I’m uh. Danny offered to bankroll, which is ridiculous, but he was very insistent. And Karen’s my fashion advisor.”

There was a swish of hair as Karen nodded.

“You’re lucky you’re so cute, Matt,” she said, mock-sternly, “because otherwise I might not have forgiven you for stealing my Cinderella moment.”

Even though there was clear humor in her voice, Matt still felt guilty. It didn’t seem fair to leave Karen out.

“I mean, I. I could, uh—”

“She’s messing with you, man,” said Foggy, reaching out to pat Matt’s arm. “Danny offered her her own invite and she turned him down.”

“Well, the nineteenth is booked solid for me,” she said, in a way that Mat regrettably could guess meant ‘I’m off to do something dangerous and illegal with Jessica Jones or Frank Castle’. “But Foggy promised me pictures of you guys in all your regalia in exchange for my assistance.”

“Sold me out, huh?” asked Matt, tipping his head towards Foggy.

“You don’t get to judge me, Murdock, you haven’t seen her threatening face.” Foggy paused to slurp up some more noodles. “But hey, did you need any help on _your_ outfit, buddy?”

Matt shook his head.

“Nah,” he said with a grin. “I’ve got some help lined up.”

* * *

That help was increasingly pushy as the days got on. But then, Matt probably should have expected that from Michelle. According to Peter, whose voice was embarrassingly dreamy, she’d been blunt and disaffected since the day he’d met her. The best thing to do when she was in a creative frenzy, he insisted to Matt, was to follow her orders as exactly and quickly as possible.

And so, Matt agreed to behave himself. There was a fitting for the vest form before it got sent off to Danny’s contacts for embroidery, there was a fitting of the initial skirt piece, sans the ruffles Peter had designed to give it volume. And then, when the vest came back, there was another fitting to help work out the fastenings. Matt had never had clothes so meticulously crafted in his life.

“Hooks for the skirt,” decided Michelle that day. “And buttons for the vest. The first one I can do by eye, but the buttons are gonna be visible so we want them to look good.”

And so, Matt slipped into the newly-embroidered vest and settled down in a chair to let Michelle work on marking where she wanted to sew the buttons. The idea of just, sitting there doing nothing made him itchy though. Made him feel like a doll. Wade seemed to sense it and dragged a chair over to sit next to him.

“So, Magoo. What about the rest of that story?” he asked.

Matt shrugged, and was tapped on the collar bone by Michelle.

“Hold still, I need to get this right,” she insisted.

“There’s, uh, there’s not much more to tell,” explained Matt. “I mean, after what I told you last time, I guess I just. Figured things out. There wasn’t anything momentous. I didn’t have any boyfriends or anything, I just kind of kept on as I was.”

“What? You’ve been with guys before, Murdock,” Michelle said, pulling the vest closed and sliding in pins at intervals along each side. “I know you’ve been with guys.”

Which, yeah, ok, he had. But…

* * *

It took Matt six months to work up the courage to kiss another guy. And it was a quick thing. Sort of furtive. But good, really good. Not a stranger, but not a friend either — one of his classmates. A friendly acquaintance.

He still dated women. Exclusively. Because that was familiar, that was easy.

And because he was in love with Foggy.

Maybe Matt had a little trouble getting in tune with his feelings, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. He was jealous of Marci. He was jealous of all Foggy’s hookups and dates. When he and Foggy were drunk and had their arms around each other, swaying as they walked down the sidewalk, Matt could never stop himself from resting his head on Foggy’s shoulder, burying his nose in Foggy’s hair.

But it was more than attraction. Matt didn’t just want to kiss Foggy, or sleep with him. He wanted to, to _be_ with him, as much as possible. Wanted to feed Foggy foods he liked. Wanted to brush his hair. Wanted to hold hands and do horribly cliche couple things together. Wanted to go save the world together, Nelson and Murdock.

It was terrifying.

Foggy was attracted to him, or had been at one point. But Matt had no way to know if that meant he could or would fall in love too. Matt could still have Nelson and Murdock as Foggy’s best friend. He didn’t want to risk losing that. Especially considering his disastrous romantic history.

So Matt didn’t… He didn’t date guys. But he did kiss them sometimes. And slept with them sometimes. It was— easier, to do it like that, with someone he wasn’t in love with. Because then it was just, just bodies and heat and pleasure. Just two people having a good time.

But there were dreams. And in those dreams, the body wrapped in Matt’s arms was soft and warm and familiar and had a head of silky hair and called him _Matty_ in a voice that meant ‘I love you’.

* * *

“Wow. That’s. I don’t even know what to say to that,” Peter cut in, jerking Matt sharply back to the present. “I mean you’re just... I knew you had it _bad_ , but...”

“It’s like your brain is made of cotton candy,” said Wade.

The words, though said sweetly and indulgently, hit like a slap.

“This is ridiculous,” Matt realized, embarrassed heat crawling up the back of his neck. “I’m being, I’m being ridiculous, this was a bad idea, I—”

“ _Murdock_ ,” growled Michelle. “Sit _down_.”

He sat.

“I don’t know if I can—”

“You can,” Michelle interrupted again. “And you will. Stop being an idiot or I _will_ stab you with a pin. They just think you’re… Ugh. _Cute_.”

She said the word like it physically pained her.

“We’re happy for you,” added Peter, his tone a little cautious. “Really, Red. It’s sweet.”

“Yeah. Accept our love, Magoo. Also if you don’t tell him, I’ll literally explode. And then come back and tell him _for_ you. So. Just consider that,” Wade said.

And that was the final word on that.

* * *

After a week of more fittings than Matt could stand, Michelle finally had the full skirt and vest finished for him to try on. He’d been dragged away from work, so his shirt wasn’t quite the right color, but it was more about the fit than anything. Wade still hadn’t coughed up the mask he’d promised to make, claiming it was a surprise for the night of.

After putting on the vest, letting his fingers trail over the embroidery, Matt hooked the skirt piece closed over his slacks, fluffed it out so it settled around his legs. There was only one short, ruffled layer of fabric running across the front, and the back went practically to the floor. Michelle had, at one point, wryly called it an ‘easy access’ skirt. Utterly negated in its original risque purpose, she explained, by his slacks. Intrigued by the new weight of the ruffled layers of fabric, Matt bunched a little in his hand. It was thin, light, with a high thread count. He supposed that was part of giving the skirt volume as well.

“Good,” Michelle told him. “Now see if you can walk in it.”

So Matt took a few steps, felt the fabric swish and flare out behind him as he walked. There was something— oddly thrilling about it. Wholly pleasant and new. A bit like the movement of a tailcoat, maybe, but more and lighter. He thought about the sound Elektra’s hair made as she fought, and almost wanted to try a spin kick. He didn’t follow through, though, because Michelle would kill him.

“What do you think of it, Magoo?” asked Wade, hopping up onto one of the tables with a clatter. “Easy enough to move in?”

Matt nodded.

“Yeah, it feels... Good. It, uh. How does it look?” he asked, and had to swallow when he felt his voice waver. “It’s not... It’s not too much?”

 _Not too gay_ , he might’ve said at eighteen when he was angry and insecure and tired of being condescended to. But the whole point of this was to come out, so, it. It wasn’t about that. Too unfitting, maybe? Too unsuitable to him — broken apart and sewn back together a million times, a devil mapped with scars. His lip was currently split, and he knew his knuckles were bruised. What kind of image was that for someone going to a masquerade ball? For someone looking to confess romantic feelings? For someone wearing ruffles and a silk vest?

“Too much would be if we tore all this up and squeezed you into a male stripper outfit and your horns,” Peter told him dryly. “That would really be inexcusable. This is just vibrant.”

“Hmmm,” said Wade.

“ _No_.”

“Pete, I didn’t even _say_ anything yet!” There was a pause filled with silent mischief, then— “But I mean, the male stripper idea _does_ have merit—”

“You’re fired from the team,” insisted Peter. “You’re fired.”

“I can’t be fired, you’re not paying me. I just hang out with you two sticks in the mud because I’m such a swell guy.”

“Will you two shut up?” Michelle groaned. “Look, who’s the artist here? It’s great. I did a great job, and you look… You look pretty. Ok?”

It was probably the nicest thing she’d ever said in his presence.

“Yeah,” said Matt, nodding. “Yeah, ok.”

* * *

The night of the ball, Peter and Wade agreed to accompany him to get ready. Matt was nervous enough about his plan, he didn’t want to have to worry about putting something on inside out too. Danny, in his endlessly accommodating way, had set aside a room for them at the venue, near the ballroom, and had walked Matt through the hall to get an idea of the space.

It was finally time. Do or die.

Matt’s fingers shook a little as he did up the buttons on his vest and the hooks on his skirt. Shook even more as he removed his glasses, sliding them into a case for safekeeping. But at last he was dressed, and presented himself to Peter and Wade for inspection.

“Perfect,” Wade told him. “All you need now is some eyeshadow!”

Matt waited, brows furrowed, but there was no punchline.

“You think I should put on... Makeup?”

“Just a little bit. It’ll give you confidence,” Wade said. “I promise. You don’t like it, I’ll wipe it right back off.”

Matt inhaled, held it, then exhaled, a little shaky. He was going to admit to lying to Foggy, _again_. He needed all the confidence he could get.

“Ok,” he agreed. “Ok, go for it.”

There was a _shhh_ of fabric and movement that Matt knew Wade well enough to assume corresponded to a fist-pump.

“There’s a chair two steps to your left,” Wade narrated, digging around in a bag of some sort that smelled a little like canvas, a little like iron, and a lot like gun oil. “Take a seat, Magoo. I’ll get you done up pretty.”

Matt took his two steps to the left, tilting his head to listen to the click of his dress shoes on the floor as the sound bounced off the chair. He found the back of it smoothly, and traced a hand over the top before settling on the seat of it. The chair was sturdy and didn’t creak under his weight. It was odd, sitting with extra, ruffled layers of fabric between him and the chair, when he was so used to the smooth, even texture of just slacks. The sensation was so novel that Matt didn’t notice Wade was back until he was bending over and cupping a scarred hand under Matt’s chin.

“Ok,” murmured Wade, close enough for his breath to brush Matt’s cheeks. “Eyes closed.”

Letting his eyes drift shut, Matt allowed himself to get lost in the repetitive flick of the makeup brush over his eyelids. Brush, brush, brush, and then a scraping, artistic swirl against the makeup compact to get more eyeshadow. He used it as a steadying metronome to pace his breaths. In, two, three. It would be ok. Out, two, three. Foggy would understand. In, two, three. He was Matt’s best friend. Out, two, three. They loved each other. In, two, three.

They loved each other.

Matt was startled back to awareness by a hand jostling his shoulder.

“Hey. You with us?” Wade asked.

“Yeah,” said Matt. “Yeah, I’m. I’m with you.”

“Good. It’s done, how’s it feel?”

Matt blinked his eyes a couple of times, adjusting to the slight weight of the makeup on them, the difference in texture. On instinct, he reached up to touch it, but Wade grabbed his wrist.

“It hasn’t even been a minute yet, Magoo,” he teased. “At least let Nelson appreciate my good work before you smear it like lipstick.”

“Right. Sorry.” Matt wet his lips. “What, uh. What color did you use?”

“Since I’m an artistic genius, I made a bi flag gradient. It’s pink near the center of your face, then it fades into purple, and blue on the outside edge.”

“Kind of like a sunset,” added Peter. “But sideways.”

A sunset. Matt had seen sunsets before, when he was little, but he wasn’t sure if the image in his memory was accurate. Still, the feeling of them — the warmth of those last rays of light before the encroaching coolness of night, the way Foggy’s breath caught at particularly beautiful ones, the brief stillness of twilight — those were sensations easily recalled.

Matt stood and stepped back to the center of the room, smoothing an anxious hand over the top of the chair again, then swallowed.

“Well,” he said at last, holding his arms out to the side and trying for a smile. “Do I pass muster?”

“Not without your mask you don’t,” Wade reminded him.

“Here, I’ve got it. Let me just...” One of Peter’s hands cupped the back of Matt’s head and eased a strap of elastic over it. “You look good, Red,” he promised, settling the mask on Matt’s face. “You look great. You’ll sweep him off his feet.”

“Go get him, Matty,” added Wade, his voice warm as he handed Matt his cane.

The smile came more easily.

“Thanks. Both of you,” Matt said.

He made his way out of the room, followed the hallway until he reached the last barrier between himself and the party. His knuckles were still bruised. His lip was still split. But Foggy had seen him with worse injuries. Foggy knew the Devil pretty well by now, and he wasn’t afraid of it anymore. It was time for Matt to cast aside his own doubts.

Man Without Fear was a ludicrous title, but it was one Matt wanted more than anything to live up to. To move forward and truly live without fear, without holding back, to be utterly himself.

He just had to take this one final leap.

Matt pushed open the doors.

The sound of the party, which had been muffled by the heavy wood, poured out over him like a wave. Soon after followed a barrage of scents, and a draft of air. He took a couple seconds in the doorway to acclimate to it, then made his way inside.

The door he’d come through opened onto a balcony that overlooked the ballroom, with curved staircases on either side. Matt made for the right one, the one he and Danny had walked together, and descended.

Matt would know Foggy anywhere. With all his senses dampened, with his dying breath, at the end of the world... Anywhere. Picking him out of a moderately-bustling party was no effort at all.

Matt made a beeline right for Foggy, used the tap of his cane to pick out the path in his head and the sound of Foggy’s heart, Foggy’s voice, to navigate.

People were stopping. Pausing. Noticing him. Matt tended to oscillate between loving attention and hating it, but this time the stares and the whispers sloughed off him like rainwater. Foggy was still turned in the opposite direction, his voice quieted by distance as it bounced its way back to Matt. He smelled like he’d already had a couple of hors d'oeuvres and desserts from the long buffet tables lining one wall of the ballroom. Blueberry cheesecake, most recently, Matt determined once he was in arm’s reach. One of Anika’s specialties.

“—think it’s great!” Foggy was saying to the person in front of him. “You keep studying and maybe someday Nelson, Murdock, and Page can offer you an internship, huh?”

“I haven’t even made it into law school yet,” replied a young, laughing voice.

“I have every faith in you,” Foggy told them sincerely.

Matt’s heart squeezed in his chest, and he reached out a hand, settling it lightly on Foggy’s shoulder.

“Hey, sorry to cut in,” he greeted.

Foggy turned, and Matt lifted his hand away.

“Matt? Finally, what—” Foggy’s breath caught. “That’s... Not your usual color palette,” he murmured.

Safe behind his mask, Matt summoned his most charming smile.

“I wanted to make a statement.”

“Well, you. You definitely did do that, buddy,” said Foggy. “I, uh. This, um. This is Jalen, they’re one of the kids in the program. Jalen, this is my law partner, Matt Murdock.”

Matt held out a hand and smiled.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too!” Jalen replied, shaking Matt’s offered hand. “Foggy’s always talking about you, man. Feel like I know you already.”

The three of them chatted together for another few minutes. Matt was able to give Jalen some insight on getting test accommodations for the LSAT, Foggy offered up some particularly useful studying tips despite the fact that he’d never used even one of them in the time Matt had known him because his memory was impossibly good.

As soon as Jalen drifted away towards the refreshment table, a waltz started up. Matt was pretty sure Danny had something to do with it, but he wasn’t about to waste the opportunity. He collapsed his cane, and then immediately realized he had nowhere to put it if he wanted to use both hands.

“Um.”

“Hey. Don’t worry, Matty, I’ve got you.”

Foggy tapped the back of Matt’s hand, then accepted the cane when Matt turned his palm up. There was a shift of silky-sounding fabric.

“Just tucked it into my sash here,” explained Foggy. “Let me know if you want it back, ok?”

Matt nodded.

“Um. Now that that’s... May I have this dance?” he asked, holding out a hand.

Foggy took it, like always. His palm was warm, and his fingers were cold and a little damp with condensation. There was no scent of alcohol anywhere in the ballroom, but the over-sweet fruit tang of punch hung heavy on Foggy’s breath and painted Matt a picture of Foggy’s night so far. For all that he was an extrovert, Foggy always got nervous at parties and tended to fend it off with liquid courage. Matt wondered if the punch, though unspiked, might have had a placebo effect. But bringing it up would just turn Foggy’s attention to the crowd around them, and that wasn’t worth sating Matt’s curiosity. Instead, he led Foggy out to the middle of the floor and into an admittedly unpolished waltz.

Over the next three or four minutes, Foggy’s breathing changed several times, in the way it always did when he wanted to say something. Matt let him keep his peace as they turned around the ballroom, let Foggy gather his wits until he was ready to speak.

“If you’re— just being supportive I need you to tell me right now, Murdock,” he managed at last, “before I make an assumption everyone will regret.”

“I like guys,” Matt said, like an idiot. “I mean I. This is me coming out. To you.”

“Ok,” Foggy replied. “Ok, cool.”

The words themselves were very understated, very calm, but the undertone was one that sounded deliberately restrained.

“I’ve known for, for a long time now. And other people know, but I just couldn’t… I didn’t know how to tell you. We promised no secrets in college, but there was already so much stuff I was lying to you about. And I know you hate it, that I keep hiding things, that I just keep. Keep lying to you over and over again—”

The ballroom felt hotter and hotter, though Matt knew it was only his own mounting panic at work. He’d had words ready, good ones, ones that would convince Foggy, but they were slipping through his fingers like grains of sand.

“And I’m, I’m sorry, Foggy, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you—”

“Jesus, Matt, stop.” Matt stumbled to a halt and Foggy groaned. “No. I mean. Ugh. Clarification — _keep_ dancing, _stop_ self-flagellating.”

It was difficult to find the rhythm again, and Matt’s fear, his mortification reached its peak. Why had he let Peter and Wade talk him into this?

Still, Foggy’s hand stayed firmly clasping his, and he led them as they continued to loop across the ballroom. It took a minute or two to discern their direction among all the noise and distractions — both around them and inside Matt’s own head — but he began to realize that Foggy was leading them away from the center of the room.

Finally, when they’d reached the edge of the crowd, Foggy drew them to a stop and stepped towards the glass windows running the edge of the ballroom. No, not just windows, Matt realized as a metal handle clicked and cool night air spilled into the ballroom — doors. Doors that led out onto a stone balcony. Taking Matt’s hand, Foggy stepped out onto it, then turned back to close the door behind them. There was an overpowering but not unpleasant floral smell that Matt was pretty sure — based on the sound of their rustling leaves — came from garlands of flowers looped over the balustrade.

“Ok,” Foggy said with a sigh. “Ok. We need to talk.”

“I’m sorry—”

“No. God, no. Stop. Don’t be sorry. I... Matt, I’m not mad you were closeted, I would _never_ be mad at you about that,” Foggy said, earnest and upset. “I _know_ how hard it is to be out, even just to yourself!”

Matt shook his head. Foggy’s heartbeat was saying truth, truth, truth, but. But how could it be true? Matt had promised no more secrets, and he had broken that promise.

“I, I lied to you,” he said. “You’re always. Every time I lie, you’re mad.”

“Oh for Pete’s— This is exactly why Ma’s always telling me I’ve gotta talk about my feelings,” Foggy sighed, and there was a slight scrape of skin on skin as he rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Matt, those other times were different. I was mad because you involved me or the firm in— Daredevil stuff, without asking, I was mad because I was embarrassed, and I was mad because I had to watch you almost _die_. Ok? I’m not mad about this. I promise.”

And his voice was earnest and his words made sense and his heart still beat true — and it was so much more than Matt had hoped for. Because maybe if that was ok, then. Then maybe his last little secret would be too.

“There’s one more,” Matt ventured hesitantly, taking that final freefalling leap into the unknown, “one more thing.”

Foggy swallowed.

“Yeah?”

“Foggy the thing is. The thing is I.” Matt’s mouth went dry the way it always did. “I’m.”

But nothing more came out.

“You’re uh, making me a little nervous, Matt,” Foggy said, low and cautious.

“I want you,” Matt blurted, and immediately realized how it sounded. “I mean, I’m. I want to. That too, but I want to date and, and I’m. I just. I’m in.” That beautiful, terrifying L word just wouldn’t come out, and eventually Matt pushed forward without it. “With you.”

“You love me?”

Matt nodded. Foggy took in a deep breath, let out a stuttering inhale, then said...

“ _Fuck_.”

A startled laugh spilled from Matt’s lips.

“That’s all you have to say?” he wondered.

There was a pause, the sound of a swallow. Then the shifting of hair and the creak of stretching elastic as Foggy pulled off his mask and set it on the bannister with a clack. Another burst of sweetness filled the air from the flowers he disturbed with the movement.

“I thought,” Foggy said, his own laugh wet and a little choked. “I thought you knew the whole time. That I loved you. I thought you, I dunno, never said anything because you didn’t wanna hurt my feelings.”

“All this time?” Matt asked. “You really thought that I, that I wouldn’t want you?”

The words scraped against his throat like shards of glass as he thought about how long Foggy had been carrying that hurt, that humiliation. As always, Foggy waved off his pain, forcefully bright.

“Your shock at that is weirdly gratifying, buddy. But yeah, that… That is what I thought. Not like it stopped me from. Ugh, from pining, though. If you could see me, you’d know.”

Matt wet his lips. His heart buzzed in his chest, so loud he could barely hear himself breathe let alone hear the party inside.

“What color are you wearing tonight, Foggy?” he wondered quietly.

Foggy huffed out a little chuckle.

“Yours,” he said.

Matt’s brows furrowed.

“Mine...”

“Red,” elaborated Foggy. “It’s. I’m. Very red tonight. Actually, I’m wearing an approximation of that Red Death costume in Phantom of the Opera — the one I described to you in law school, remember? With the buttons, and the boots, and the sash that’s also kind of a cape?” Matt did remember, and it clicked then, that the quiet counter-swish to his skirt when they’d been dancing had been Foggy’s sash. “And my mask, uh. Has horns. Which seemed ridiculous because it’s not like you’d be able to tell, but I. It made me feel better.”

It made Matt feel better too. They’d had, he realized, essentially the same idea. Matt had wanted to broadcast both his identity and his availability to Foggy with his outfit. Foggy had wanted to express his feelings for Matt, even as unspoken about and unwanted as he’d thought they were, with his own.

Slowly, oh-so-carefully, Foggy reached out and slid the mask up and off Matt’s face. He set it down next to his own, and that did funny things to Matt’s heart.

“Hey, Fogs.”

Another watery laugh greeted him in reply.

“You’ve got— eyeshadow,” said Foggy.

His voice was so full of— something — yearning, love, wonder? — that Matt’s heart felt fit to burst. Every part of him was lit up, bright and wild, as though there were sunshine flowing through his veins.

“Yeah,” he agreed, ridiculously breathless. “Yeah, um, Wade did it for me.”

With a shaky breath, Foggy traced the side of his thumb over one of Matt’s eyebrows, carefully skirting the outline of where Matt could feel the powdery makeup coated on his skin. Then his palm — wide, smooth, warm, and perfectly familiar — cupped the side of Matt’s face. There was a wet sound. Foggy swallowing. Matt swallowed too, wet his lips with his tongue as his heart thrummed in his chest like a struck bell, like a tuning fork.

“Matty. Can... Can I...?” asked Foggy, leaning in so close that Matt‘s lips tingled with the promise of a kiss.

“Yeah. Yes. I wish you would.”

And with those words, Foggy finally closed that infinitesimal distance. His lips were soft. For a second that seemed to hang in the air forever, that was all their kiss was, that tentative brush of mouths. And then time sped up again. One of Foggy’s hands clutched at Matt’s vest. One of Matt’s landed on Foggy’s shoulder, then traced its way up to cup his jaw.

The traces of cheesecake on Foggy’s tongue tasted as good as they’d smelled. Before he knew it, Matt was backing Foggy up against the bannister, bringing the kiss deeper and closer. He let up only when they both needed air.

“Holy shit,” Foggy wheezed. “Ok, yeah, I was missing out. We should have done this years ago.”

“Mm.”

Pleased, Matt trailed kisses from Foggy’s mouth down to his neck. He lingered there, captivated by the salt on Foggy’s skin and oh so tempted to leave a mark.

“Oh, god,” Foggy groaned. “The windows. Matt. Matty, everyone can see us.”

“Are you sure?” Matt asked, pressing another kiss to Foggy’s throat. “I don’t see any windows.”

“You’re the _worst_.”

Matt chanced a little nip at Foggy’s pulse point, but did at last back off when Foggy tugged at his hair.

“Just one more kiss?” he pleaded, beaming.

“ _Later_ , you insatiable peacock. C’mon,” Foggy laughed, lacing their fingers together. “Let’s get back inside and get those pictures for Karen, before your eyeshadow is totally ruined.”

“Well,” said Matt, as he was tugged back into the bright bustle of the ballroom, “I guess you did promise.”

* * *

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [May I Have This Dance?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24951187) by [BelgianReader2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelgianReader2/pseuds/BelgianReader2)




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